Talking Wine – September 2018
There is barely an area in southern England where you won’t find someone planting vines and trying to make wine – usually sparkling. However I had not expected to find a vineyard on St Mary’s , one of the largest islands that make up the Scilly Isles off the coast of Cornwall. The Holyvale vineyard has not had a great deal of success so far having lost a couple of crops in the past three years but it is a little ambitious trying to produce still Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. We tasted the 2015 vintage which had potential but was rather lean with a lack of fruit but certainly drinkable. Very little is made but it is being lapped up by the Island visitors and I wish them luck for a decent 2018 vintage – certainly the most southerly UK vineyard I know.
Rather surprisingly a French appeals court has rejected a case by the most famous of all Pomerol producers, Chateau Petrus, overturning a previous ruling to allow another French wine brand called Petrus Lambertini to continue using the name on its labels. The dispute began 7 years ago when Petrus Lambertini purchased the trademark “Petrus Lambertini Major Burdegalensis 1208” , a reference to Bordeaux’s first mayor. Understandably Chateau Petrus felt that the wine would possibly be seen as a “second” wine of Petrus – although it doesn’t actually make one !
As the wine only sells for £10 there is unlikely to be confusion but I suspect a a counter appeal to a higher court will follow.
